I’ve decided to break up the Jon’s Home Blog a bit, there’s too much of a mix of information on this site for it to index very well and be findable, and also for visitors to find related content on what they came here for.

I have added two new domains http://www.jonslasers.com/ which contains the content from /laserblog and http://www.jonshobbies.com/ which contains the electronic and radio controlled hobbies I’m into.  The home blog will continue to contain articles about stuff about projects on the house, seasonal projects and other things primarily concerned with ‘home & living’.

The site http://www.thaltech.com/laserblog has always been it’s own segregated content so moving that to jonslasers.com was almost no problem. I say almost because I created a robots.txt to block search engines until I had finished making the changes.  Once I had made the changes I went to Google Webmaster Tools to update the sitemap.xml file and added the domain, but I forgot to change the robots.txt file to allow search engines.  This blocked Google and Adsense from crawling the page, but fortunately Google rescanned the robots.txt in around 24 hours, some people have had to way 10+ days for that.

Creating jonhobbies.com took a bit more work since I had to parse out a lot of the posts and other information by hand. I exported The Home Blog WordPress database to a file and imported it into the MySQL database on the new host. I replaced all internal references on the new database to this URL with the new URL using a couple of MySQL replace query. After verifying that all took effect, I then I went through and weeded out all the non-rc and non-electronic posts.

Once that was done I installed a re-director plug-in and manually edited about 50 posts to redirect to http://www.jonshobbies.com/ If you click on a link, on this page, for an Electronics or Radio Controlled related post you will automatically be redirected to that post at it’s new location http://www.jonshobbies.com/ this made possible by the WordPress plug-in Quick Page/Post Redirect. All of those pages have a 301 Redirect which is a permanent redirect. Google should pick up the redirection soon and index them sometime soon at their new location.  For now I’ll just leave the post previews and stuff on this site so any bookmarks will take people to the right place.

The final step now is to work through the jonhobbies.com posts and clean up some of the perma-links in the posts. I was originally using (like on this blog) the ../year/month/date/title structure but it makes for very long URLS.  On the jonslasers.com and jonshobbies.com sites I’ve switch to the /%postname%.html format for a more readable URL format.

If you like to follow my posts the best thing to do is to subscribe with an RSS reader at each site using your web browser or mobile phone (The pages have a ‘Rss Feed’ link button on the upper right hand corner of the screen’) or on your mobile click the RSS link or put it into your favorite reader. This way despite where I may post some information you can keep up to date. If you are only interested in certain topics then you only should subscribe to the sites which you are interested in.

If you’re not sure how to use RSS feeds, you can search on google, for example if you have an Android phone, just do a search on ‘Android RSS’ there should be something built into the phone that can read RSS feeds, but you can also get more advanced apps for your phone as well.  The newsreaders will let you know when anything has changed and give your portions of the posts as well.

Related Posts

1. Some Site Updates, Scott’s PatchMaster, Lasers, and Helicopters
2. Updated Blog with WPtouch for Mobile Compatibility
3. Side yard photos, a bird, and some flowers

Your search for a WordPress Mobile Theme is over! Well, at least mine is I added the WPtouch-Pro plugin from BraveNewCode also known as BNC into WordPress to make this site more readable on mobile devices. It should now load pretty quick and look nice on devices such as the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and so on.

Upon checking my stats a while back I noticed that I was getting more visitors via mobile devices. While the numbers aren’t huge I thought it would probably be a good idea to provide a streamlined experience for those viewers that would allow them fast and direct access to this site and the articles within.

About a month ago I started working with mobile sites/css/etc to try and provide some mobile services for one of my personal project sites I have been working on.  That turned out to be an incredibly huge amount of work, especially for someone like me who doesn’t do a lot of layout coding.  While most phones will render regularly formatted web pages nicely, it’s important provide a format specifically for mobile devices.  Big buttons, readable text, minimal multi-touch zooming required, intelligent interface, etc.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time preparing a mobile theme but you also want something that is flexible to your needs you may wish to consider WPtouch.  You can do a search in the WordPress plug-ins or you can go their website to download the free 1.9 version of the plugin, or the WPtouch-Pro version from their website.

WPtouch basically takes your WordPress blog and pulls all the content apart on the fly and re-organizes it with a fresh new layout which is most at home on mobile phones.  While your computer based web users will continue to see your normal site template, users with smart phones will get a page which looks very at home on the portable device.

The basic interface of WPtouch-Pro was very easy to set up.  It lets you define all off the basic layout options including the icons used for various sections in the site. It comes with a large number of icons, and if you don’t like any of those you can add your own.  If you don’t like the template you can also create you own, or use one of the existing two.   The folks at BraveNewCode say that they will be adding new template designs shortly, and anyone who has registered for the 2.x version will get a free upgrade throughout the 2.x revision series to the newest plugin and the latest themes they have developed.

The WPtouch plugin is available for free on the WordPress plugin directory, but there is a newer 2.0 version out, WPtouch Pro that is $29 dollars per site or $59  (CAN) for a 5 site license.  Their plugin supports ‘web site as an app’ functionality in Safari and lots of other cool stuff such as themes, drop down menus, ajax enhanced interface, custom WPtouch-Pro  management interface panel, custom icons and it just goes on.  Check out their site for more info, I think you’ll like it.They also provide full commercial support for their product.

Check out http://www.thaltech.com/houseblog on your mobile phone to see how it looks or just scan the following QR code on your device.   Please post a comment and let me know what you think, I’d appreciate it!

A WHAT CODE? A QR Code is a kind of bar code that rather than just being a bunch of variable width lines like | || |||| | || like you see on packages and on your mail, known as one dimensional, each dot on a QR represents a bit of data and it reads across and up and down.  QR codes can be used to store URL’s (like above), text, small pictures, map info, contact info, etc.   You can make your own QR Codes if you do a search for “QR Code Generator“.

To read a QR code you need a code reading application and a phone/computer with a camera.  There is a lot of different software out there.   For the Android the one I prefer is Barcode Scanner v3.4 . This is a basic bar code scanner that will let you search product IDs online (for price comparison while you shop) and of course read QR codes and go directly to the web page.

You will have to do a search if you have an iPhone, Black Berry or other device. Usually just going to your app market you can search for ‘bar code’ and get a lot of results.

Related Posts

1. Updated The WordPress Theme to Talian Adsense
2. Some Changes to the Thaltech.com Website
3. Do You Have Strange Charges on your Cellphone Bill?

Every so often I come across these wild and crazy articles that just make my head spin.  In this case it’s about a planned ‘Moon Bombing’ experiment that is planned by NASA.  They basically plan to perform a large kinetic impact with the moon as part of their LCROSS mission.

Of course, then the nuts come out of the woodwork.  While the experiment may actually violate ‘space law’, the second part of the issue, that it may trigger conflict with -KNOWN- moon dwelling space aliens, just totally blows my mind.

Check it out, and please note that while the ‘publication’ which posted this is a questionable and unreliable media source, the links on their page actually lead to sites of people who believe this tripe! It may just be better to buy a tinfoil hat so the weirdos think you’re on their side, cause there’s no cure for crazy!  And just for the record, it’s about time we start probing some alien populations, they’ve been doing it to us for so long! (rolls eyes)

For the most part though, if NASA bombs your own personal plot of Lunar Realty that you might have reserved or paid some dirt bag to secure and hold for you ’till the day you make it there.  Is it possible that you could declare war on the US, or own all the rights to data and materials derived from, or placed on your own lunar plot!?

Related Posts

1. Arizona State Uni and NASA LROC – Great Photos
2. International Space Station Highly Visible to US Residents in July ’09
3. Crazy People With Explosives

It’s raining tonight again.  It’s really been crazy, like it should be Spring right now and not summer.  For the last two weeks we’ve had almost non-stop rain, perhaps one or two days without it.  The Scott’s Patchmaster is doing great, but it’s not really getting a chance to get it’s roots deep in the ground and form a solid mat due to all of the available water from rain, as a result the ground is a bit squishy over there still.  I keep a jar out on one of the planters so I can see how much it rains.  In one 24 hour period I measured almost 3 inches of rain!   Crazy weather!

There’s a few changes coming to the Thaltech.com website, it won’t affect this blog for the most part, but is part of me wanting to unify all of my various hobbies into something easily manageable and search-able.

I’ve started updating some of the other pages on this website. My most visited site, my current Jon’s Homebuilt Lasers , is slowly being transitioned over to Jon’s Commercial, Industrial and Homebuilt Lasers which will me in the format of a new CMS / Blogging style which closely mirrors the appearance of this site. I plan on getting some things going with that hobby in a month or two and wanted a site which was easy to update, as well as I am interested in merging appearance and access on my websites.

Also in transition at this time is my current Jon’s  Helis website. I also be converting my rocket site over as well as creating a new one specifically for my high voltage projects and experiments.

When all is said and done I will replace the main Thaltech Webpage with a blog type interface as well which will receive general ‘stuff’ type posts and also receive updates from each of the partitioned sites. This will allow me to have all of my projects and work and hobbies and such indexed on the main URL for my website, providing for my own little gateway into things.

You may ask why I’d want to make everything completely separate, rather than just running one giant blog.  For one I want to individually theme each site towards people who have interest in those specific items, without them having to dig through a ton of unrelated content.  Additionally I like to keep things segmented for my own purposes.

Related Posts

1. Weekend Update: Lawns and Scott’s Patchmaster (28 day report)
2. Analyzing Your Radio Controlled Helicopters Current Consumption
3. General Update – Toilet Dimming Lights, Lasers, Weather, Air Conditioners, Lawn

I’ve updated the WordPress theme on this site, again.  I was missing the 3 column layout like I am used to with my PHPNuke installations/Themes.   I’ve switched to the Talian Adsense theme and made a few minor changes to it’s appearance. Articles are now truncated and you can click on their title or ‘continue reading’ to see their full content.  I think this job does a good job at displaying all the content I want visible.

I went through various free themes which claimed to support Adsense but I just couldn’t find one that looked reasonable, weren’t full of buggy visuals or suffered some other problem.  This theme, while being a pay theme, provided me all of the functionality I wanted in the site, doesn’t interfere with other problems (actually it integrates well with SEO plugins from the same author as well as all my other plugins) and the author provides reasonable support and updates if required for compatibility, etc.

Related Posts

1. Updated Blog with WPtouch for Mobile Compatibility
2. Some Site Updates, Scott’s PatchMaster, Lasers, and Helicopters
3. Some Changes to the Thaltech.com Website

This is just amazing, I can’t believe what people get up to sometimes.  And I’m a little bit jealous as well, to be honest, if I made so much as a small bang around here I’d probably end up in Gitmo / Gitmo II.  Anyways, check this crazy video out.  If you’ve seen it before, enjoy it again!

Coming soon to a burn ward near wherever these people are from (I’m guessing a Spanish country, considering the background music)

Via LiveLeak:   Sledgehammer and explosives

Not sure which kind of shock sensitive explosive they’re using, but it’s certainly not Tannerite, but if you’re afraid of strapping explosives to your trusty sledge, maybe you can try this.   I wonder if it comes in 55 gallon drums…

And another edit, while we’re on the topic of explosives I wanted to touch a bit on the topic of internet ad placement.   When you’re viewing crazy articles and other things on the net, take a moment to actually look at the ads they place.   Because the ad engines are non-discriminatory you’ll often come upon things that just, are totally.. WRONG such as this ad.

Terrible Ad Placement

Related Posts

1. You can’t fix crazy! NASA Moon Bombing! Lunar Real Estate!
2. Live Sidewinder Missile Caught by Fisherman
3. Cleaning out Flower Beds

I wanted to post some more pics of the Mini-Titan e324 helicopter for anyone who might be interested.   The kit is an Ace R/C Mini-Titan e325 and is the non-SE version. The Mini-Titan SE comes with all the aluminum blingbling you could be interested in.   The 325 is relevant to the length of the blade, but is a 450 size electric helicopter if you go by other peoples standards such as the T-Rex and so on.

You can click here to see more pics of electric, nitro and gasoline powered R/C helicopters I own or have owned (new window) from my helicopter site.

The picture below is of a nitro-methanol powered helicopter I owned, provided as a comparison for the smaller electric one which is the subject of this post, and pictured in the gallery images below it.

A .50 Powered Nitro-Methanol Raptor 50

The smaller electrics like the Mini-Titan and T-Rex 450 are great for a quick quiet flight in a small area where you wouldn’t want to fire up a nitro-methanol or gasoline combustion engine powered model helicopter.   Though they tend to have quite a few benefits, they are not really neighbor friendly, and it’s not really safe to fly them in tight quarters. If you are in an environment that allows nitro-methanol, I’d certainly look deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of both types.

My Mini-Titan e325 runs the stock ACE brushless motor and ACE brushless electronic speed controller included with the kit.  The blades, as seen in the photo, are Align 325 Pros.  They are wooden blades, but perform decently.  The stock kit blades are very heavy and not that great, though you can do your initial setup with them if needed. I’ve recently dumped the Align pro’s and switch to a generic carbon fiber 325mm blade type that I get from heliflightcenter.com for $17 a pair (and I get helireward points!)

My ACE Mini-Titan e325 Setup as of This Posting:

Radio: Futaba 9CHP 9-channel computer radio
Receiver: Futaba 149DP 9-channel PCM receiver
Servos: 3 Hitech HS-65MG metal gear for the cyclic and collective pitch on the main rotor
1 Futaba S9257 Digital Tail Rotor Servo
Gyro: Logitech LGT-2100T heading lock gyro (for the tail)
Flight Recorder: Flight Data Recorder from Eagle Tree Avianoics
Brushless Motor: Stock ACE Brushless Motor
Brushless Speed Controller: Stock ACE Brushless Electronic Speed Controller

The Eagle Tree Flight Data Recorder records voltage and current used and allows me to graph out power consumption from the motor and servos on my PC so I can see how to better tune or improve the helicopter towards better performance.

The cyclic and collective on the main rotor is controlled using eCCPM (electronic Cyclic, Collective, and Pitch Mixing).  eCCPM allows 3 servos to perform the same function as  4 to 5 servos in a mechanically mixed system, but it requires stronger servos as the load from the head is the same as it would be with 4 to 5 servos. eCCPM is pretty much the standard these days.  My older Nitro Raptor 60 and Nitro Raptor 50 used mCCPM, mechanical mixing.

Please check out the photos below for some pics of the Mini-Titan’s internals, it is a bit dusty, I was hoping Sunday’s flight would help remove some of it, but I may just need to use some canned duster on it.

Related Posts

1. I’ve Ordered Some Upgrade Parts for the Mini-Titan e325 Helicopter
2. Mini-Titan Helicopter e325 Upgrades with Phoenix 45 and Scorpion HK-2221-8
3. Heli-Max Novus CP R/C Helicopter